


Best Known

by tastewithouttalent



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Best Friends, Blow Jobs, Body Worship, Brain Damage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Hand Jobs, Long-Term Relationship(s), M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, No Plot/Plotless, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-24
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-11-06 06:49:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17934869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tastewithouttalent/pseuds/tastewithouttalent
Summary: "Bucky has his mouth pressed against bare collarbone when Steve takes a breath to speak." Whatever time and life may do to Steve and Bucky, some things remain evergreen.





	1. Familiar

Bucky has his mouth pressed against bare collarbone when Steve takes a breath to speak.

“You don’t have to do this.” His voice is clear, self-assured in that way Bucky has always known it to be, even when Steve’s breathing is rasping over pain or hurt or unhappiness. Steve never sounds uncertain, whatever else sincerity may show in his voice; and he doesn’t sound uncertain now, as he speaks as calmly as if Bucky can’t feel his body trembling under the weight of Bucky’s hold at his hip and the shadow of Bucky’s shoulders casting Steve under their influence. Steve’s own hands are pressing against Bucky’s bare skin, one resting at the small of the other’s back and the other up at the back of his neck, but neither of them tense to pin the other still as Bucky pauses and lifts his head from where he was losing himself to the pale of Steve’s skin under his mouth. Steve meets his gaze without flinching, even with his cheeks flushed red with the heat they have been coaxing between them for the last half-hour; the only surrender he gives is at his mouth, in the flicker of a self-deprecating smile that turns up the corners of his eyes on sincerity as he meets Bucky’s confused gaze.

“It’s alright,” he says. “I’m not under any delusions.” One skinny shoulder lifts, Steve’s head tips to the side to join the gesture with another smile. “I’m not exactly easy on the eyes.”

Bucky shakes his head. “Don’t say that,” but Steve just smiles again, softer and wider so the expression melts into the ever-clear blue of his gaze.

“I don’t mean you should find someone else,” he says. “Or that I think you’re going to. Looks aren’t everything.” He shrugs again. His fingers at Bucky’s neck slide up fractionally, his index finger reaching out as if to curl into a hold against the dark of the other’s hair. “I’m just saying that’s not why you want me and you don’t have to pretend it is.” His smile breaks towards the flicker of a grin as his chin dips down to cast his gaze into something nearly flirtatious as it comes up through the endless shadow of his lashes. “I know it’s really my scathing wit that keeps you around.”

Bucky snorts hard. “Yeah, I can always count on you to cut me down to size.” That makes Steve laugh, sincere amusement breaking over the whole of his face like daybreak, and Bucky has to smile to himself at the ease with which the pleasure spreads across Steve’s expression. He shakes his head to collect himself and takes a breath while Steve is still pulling back laughter into a more composed smile. “You’re wrong about me, though, Stevie.”

Steve’s eyebrow comes up over his steady gaze. “Oh?” he says, and lifts his hand from Bucky’s back so he can fit his fingers in under his head and angle his arm into the approximation of a gesture that would flex seemingly casual tension into the muscle of his bicep and forearm, if he had much of either. “Yeah, I’m really a young Adonis, you’re right.”

Bucky laughs. “Don’t be stupid,” he says, and leans in to press his mouth against the quirk of laughter at Steve’s lips. Steve smiles into the kiss, ready to surrender his point for the fit of Bucky’s mouth on his, and Bucky lingers longer than Steve expects him to, until the tension of amusement has melted into the softer heat of pleasure between their mouths. After a moment Steve’s mouth shifts, his lips parting to make a suggestion that Bucky takes to taste the sweet of Steve’s mouth against his tongue. For a minute speech is forgotten, dissolved out of attention by the heat of their mouths fitting together, until when Bucky finally draws back his face is glowing with as much heat as the flush glowing over Steve’s cheeks and coloring his lips to red.

“Steve,” Bucky says, with as much attention as he can get onto the other’s name with his heart pounding as hard in his chest as it is. Steve’s lashes lift, Steve’s attention flickers up and over Bucky’s face, and Bucky meets the other’s heavy-lidded gaze with as much sincerity as he can put behind his eyes. “I like you.” He pauses before tipping his chin down to deliberately cast his gaze across the trembling lines of Steve’s body under his. “ _All_ of you.”

Steve’s mouth quirks at the corner. “You’re not serious, Bucky.”

Bucky shakes his head. “I’m very serious,” he says, and there’s no laughter in his throat at all this time, not a trace of the amusement that was tight in his chest before. Steve’s smile shifts, his gaze drifting towards confusion instead of self-assurance, and Bucky slides one hand to brace against the bed under them so he can hold himself up off the other’s frail body.

“I like you,” Bucky says, and punctuates with the press of his mouth against the shape of Steve’s collarbone, where the bone presses so close to the surface of the other’s skin that it seems like it might tear free with too hasty a motion. Steve gusts a breath at the contact, his shoulders tensing underneath the weight of Bucky’s mouth, and Bucky shifts down farther to breathe against the motion of Steve’s inhales working in his narrow chest, where every breath pushes the outline of his ribs to painful visibility. Bucky rocks in against his bracing hand so he can free the other to touch at Steve’s waist and steady the thrum of heat running through the other’s body before he ducks in to fit his lips to the midpoint of Steve’s chest, just off-center from the rhythm of his heart pounding fast on adrenaline. Steve shudders with the contact, his hand at Bucky’s neck coming up to tighten into the other’s hair, and Bucky ducks in lower, sliding his knees back to hold himself up at the end of the bed so he can work his way farther down Steve’s body.

“All of you,” he says again, and kisses at the curve of Steve’s lowest ribs, just above the steep indentation hollowing out the flat of his stomach. Steve huffs at the ticklish contact, his fingers curling into Bucky’s hair like he’s thinking of urging the other back, but Bucky doesn’t linger beyond that one tremor of reaction. He rocks his elbow down to steady himself alongside Steve’s hip without lifting his palm from the other’s side so he can free his other hand to touch against the sharp lines of Steve’s hip and down against the muscle of thighs so lean the tension in the other’s body is lifting them to straining cords under pale skin. Steve shakes with that too, quivering the way he always does when he pushes himself too hard or when Bucky has drawn out the heat of lips on skin and bodies pressing against each other too long, but Bucky lingers for a long moment where he is, looking down to watch the slide of his fingers wind over Steve’s leg to the knob of bone at his ankle and the line of a calf that can never merit a description of anything more than skinny. Steve looks fragile, as breakable as if Bucky might shatter him with too strong of a touch; as if he might break himself with a too firm application of that will that Bucky knows runs steel-strong through all those brittle bones and underdeveloped muscles. But more than anything, more than all of that: he looks like Steve, like Bucky’s Steve, and Bucky thinks he’ll never be able to see anything but beauty in every trembling line of Steve’s skinny body for that fact alone.

“I like you like you,” Bucky says, letting the words spill over the angle of Steve’s hip and across the tension tight all across his stomach, and then he ducks his head and presses his mouth down against the heat of want as tense in Steve’s cock as it is running through all the rest of his body. Steve jerks under Bucky’s touch, his fingers twisting to a fist in the other’s hair as his head tilts back on a moan with heat enough to sound almost a wail, and Bucky tightens one hand at Steve’s waist and drops the other to hold down the strain in Steve’s leg and pin him still for the press of Bucky’s lips against him. Steve holds at Bucky’s hair, working his fingers to a desperate grip as he pants as hard as if he’s run himself ragged on a sprint, and Bucky ducks his head down and takes Steve over his tongue until he’s pulled all the tension of heat in the other’s body free against the press of lips and tongue and mouth.

Steve pulls him up, after, with the force of his fingers in Bucky’s hair nothing like strong enough to urge the other up except for Bucky’s perfect willingness to be pulled, and when Steve closes his bony-knuckled fingers around Bucky Bucky presses his forehead to Steve’s sharp collarbone, and gasps against the tremor of exertion in Steve’s chest, and spills the jolting force of his orgasm across the tension of the other’s stomach and the lines of ribs rising stark from the pale of his skin. By the time Steve draws his hold free and reaches to touch his hand to Bucky’s back Bucky is trembling as badly as Steve himself, and when he reaches to catch an arm around Steve’s waist he pulls hard enough to pin the whole of Steve’s skinny frame flush against the warmth of his own.

Steve wraps one arm around Bucky’s shoulders, his arm thin enough that Bucky can feel the line of bone digging in against him as well as the sharp point of Steve’s elbow catching around his hip, but Steve’s hold is sure when he grips at Bucky’s tangled hair and quivering shoulders, as certain as his voice as he takes a breath to speak. “Thanks, Bucky.”

The gratitude is typical, as regular a conclusion to these interludes as the sound of their heat-roughened breathing tangling together in the air around them. But Bucky still ducks his head in against the sweat-dark pale of Steve’s hair and shuts his eyes to breathe in past the knot in his throat before he can trust himself to answer.

“Anytime, Stevie,” he says, and tightens his hold to add the strength of his arms to the force of Steve’s will in keeping them together.


	2. Recognize

Steve is acting weird.

Or, at least, Bucky thinks he’s acting weird. It’s hard to be sure, when his own mind is such a muddle of memory and nightmares and half-formed premonitions of what feels like the future, as if such a thing were even possible. His injuries are healed, at least the physical ones; he can’t gauge the depth of the mental scars, not from the vantage point in the middle of exactly the damage that was done, and he’s not willing to volunteer any kind of acknowledgment of those same. But it’s easier to bear those with Steve present, as if the world that seems sometimes to have spun out-of-alignment under Bucky’s feet has resteadied itself with the gravity of Steve’s presence, and if that presence is somewhat  _ more _ than it once was, Bucky is hardly in a position to complain about the savior that rescued him and the rest of his companions from captivity.

But Steve is acting weird, facing away even after he gets the door shut and locked to grant them the privacy of the room to just themselves, and Bucky can’t get a good look at his face to even try to judge what the problem is. He’s left to stand in the middle of the room, aware of every piece of clothing pressing against his body like a wall between them, and watch Steve pace the edge of the room with a visible anxiety Bucky’s never seen in him before, even when he had more cause for it. Steve walks, and hunches, tipping in on himself as if he’s afraid to stand up straight, until finally it’s Bucky who takes a breath and speaks with more volume than he meant to use to let the words echo off the walls around them. “What’s the matter, Steve?”

Steve pauses in his movement, his head lifting so he can meet Bucky’s gaze. For a minute Bucky thinks he’s going to deny that anything is wrong at all, but Steve has never been one for lying, even in the simplest of ways, and in the end he huffs into a weak smile that doesn’t touch his eyes and turns his head to look away again.

“I was just…” He touches his fingers to the back of the chair he’s standing in front of, sliding his touch across the surface like he’s seeking out the texture of it. His forehead creases, his breath drags deep. “It’s really good to see you again, Bucky.”

Bucky doesn’t look away. “And?”

Steve doesn’t look up at all this time. His smile fades, melting free without his attention to hold it there; his fingers tighten against the back of the chair. Bucky watches him frown, watches him draw a breath, and then Steve straightens, lifting his head and turning his shoulders to face Bucky with as much intention behind the action as if he’s expecting to face the loaded barrel of a gun.

“And it’s okay if it’s not for you.” Steve is meeting Bucky’s eyes fully, without blinking or ducking his head to turn away; there’s no quaver in his shoulders, no tremor in his voice. When he shrugs the motion ripples under the close-fitting white of his undershirt, pulling across muscle with the careless grace of natural strength. “I’m, uh.” His mouth quirks at the corner as he snorts a laugh. “Taller. This must feel a little like talking to a stranger.” His chin tips down, his gaze softens as the angle casts the force of it up through the weight of his lashes. “I’m not going to expect us to pick up right where we left off.” Another shrug; this time his gaze does drop entirely, angling to fall to his hold at the back of the chair next to him. “We don’t have to pick up at all, if you don’t want to.”

It takes Bucky a minute to realize what Steve is getting at. Part of that is his general confusion: however much he intends to at least downplay if not outright deny the mismatch between reality and his perception of it, the fact remains that he’s not completely sure how he got here, isn’t at all clear on the details of how Steve found or rescued him. The facts seem to be holding steady, even if Bucky’s understanding is lacking, and that’s enough to go on, but he’s sure he’s lagging on some details, slow with some of his responses. But more, he thinks, it’s that the implication under Steve’s words is so distant from anything actually in his mind that when he realizes what Steve is trying to say he has to consciously pull himself backwards by several seconds of thought just to adjust himself onto the right path.

“Wait,” he says, as if Steve is doing anything at all but waiting for whatever it is Bucky will do. “You think I don’t  _ want _ you?”

Steve shrugs and grimaces apologetically. “I mean.” He huffs a laugh and looks up through his lashes at Bucky before him. “I look pretty different than when you last saw me.”

Bucky stares at Steve for a minute. Steve’s shoulders are hunched, his head ducked down; if his hair were longer it would be falling in front of his eyes to half-shadow the clear of his gaze on Bucky’s face. But he’s not looking away, not ducking or flinching from whatever reaction he might find waiting for him in the other’s expression, and for a moment the familiarity of that -- that unwillingness to back down for anything or anyone -- is so clear that Bucky almost doesn’t see the rest of the changes so obvious in every part of Steve’s body.

He doesn’t look away. There’s a lot else to look at; a lot more than there used to be of Steve, on that point Bucky’s memories are very clear. But those eyes are the same, as unchanged as the steadiness of that gaze, and Bucky can respond to that without needing any more than instinct from the mess that has been made of his mind. He crosses the room without speaking, letting his feet bring him forward and closer to where Steve is standing, until he’s near enough that he has to look up to keep holding the other’s gaze.

Bucky clears his throat. “You’re a little taller,” he admits. “You think a few inches of height is gonna make me not know who you are?” Steve’s mouth twists towards a smile, his breath huffs into a laugh, and Bucky gives him a grin that is just as sincere if somewhat shakier from the heat burning behind his eyes.

“Come here,” he says, and when he reaches up to catch his hand at the back of Steve’s neck Steve leans forward immediately, dipping down in answer to the weight of Bucky’s touch as fast as the other’s hand makes contact. It’s strange for Bucky to have so much strength shifting under his touch, to feel latent power submitting to the simple weight of his hand, but then Steve’s lips brush against Bucky’s mouth and there is nothing strange at all about that, that’s a familiarity written so deep into Bucky’s identity that even his dizzy confusion can’t scratch the surface of it. He doesn’t have to think to turn his head into the friction, even if his chin is turning up instead of down, doesn’t have to hesitate before parting his lips under the press of Steve’s mouth, and when Steve’s tongue touches his own Bucky knows the taste of him too, as sweet and warm as he ever was back in the dark of a Brooklyn bedroom. Bucky’s fingers come up into Steve’s hair, his mouth opens wider to urge Steve closer to him, and Steve leans in at once, surrendering as quickly as he used to when they were years younger and inches smaller, as easily as he always has for Bucky’s touch.

They don’t talk. Steve’s lips are occupied with other pursuits, Bucky sees to that for the first minutes at least, and even once they break apart to gasp heat-steamed breaths off each other’s lips Bucky ducks his head to turn his attention to the barrier of Steve’s clothing instead of the needless delay of putting words to the thrum of want across his shoulders and down his spine. Steve ducks in to the urging of Bucky’s hands at his shirt, tipping his head and hunching down with as much impatient grace as he ever used to, and even if the body beneath that thin fabric is broader and warmer and heavier than it once was Steve trembles just the same to the touch of Bucky’s fingers at his skin, quivering through the whole expanse of his stronger body just as he used to when he was formed of skin and bones instead of steel-strong muscle. Bucky touches his fingers to the span of Steve’s chest, presses his hands up across the tremor of heat over Steve’s shoulders and down along the unresisting strength of his biceps and forearms, and when he looks back up Steve is watching him the same way he always did, with such hesitation behind his eyes he makes the expression look almost an apology.

Bucky catches a smile against the corner of his lips, lets his mouth curl up onto a smirk that tightens to sincerity at the corners of his eyes. “I don’t know what you think is so different,” he says, and lets his hands drop to rest the weight of his palms against Steve’s hips, where bone is replaced now with lean muscle to support the weight of Bucky’s fingers without even noticing them. “You still look like Stevie to me.” Steve’s lashes dip, the endless shadow of those untouched by any part of the changes that have applied themselves to the rest of his body, and when he smiles it lights up his eyes the same way, softens all the lines of intent sincerity from his expression and melts him into the innocence of affection. Bucky’s smile goes wider in answer, spreading over his face like he’s remembering the shape of it from the truth of Steve’s happiness, and when Steve shifts closer to lean in Bucky’s lifting his head and dropping his gaze to Steve’s mouth well before the span of the other’s fingers have brushed against the back of his head to hold him steady.

There’s more to explore, of course. Steve’s smile is the same, Steve’s eyes are as steady and clear as they have ever been, but there is undeniably more of him, and that requires some application of attention just for Bucky to press his gaze and fingers and lips to shoulders and stomach and thighs, to relearn the feel of Steve shaking under him even if his tremors are carried on unmeasured strength, now, instead of unsupported weakness. But he feels the same, when Bucky shuts his eyes to it, still tastes the same when Bucky ducks in to catch the salt of heat-sweat against his lips and breathe the taste of Steve’s presence into the span of his lungs, and when Bucky pushes Steve down to lie across the bed so he can set himself at the foot of the mattress and dip his head over him the sound Steve makes for the weight of Bucky’s mouth on his cock is the same, high and breaking on desire that has more the sound of relief on it than a plea. Bucky steadies his hand at Steve’s hip, and his fingers against the inside of Steve’s thigh, and when he shuts his eyes he can let the line between present and past blur out of all importance, to leave only that one vital fact of himself, and Steve, and the heat of their bodies pressing together to hum satisfaction into his mind and spill pleasure over his tongue.

There are advantages to Steve’s present body, to be sure. His palms are bigger than they used to be, his fingers stronger than Bucky remembers them, and if Bucky feels dizzy by the time he draws away from Steve’s body with the taste of the other’s desire hot on his tongue Steve is able to press him down to the sheets in turn, now, to urge Bucky’s shoulders to the bed and brace him steady under the shadow of his weight as Steve’s mouth finds the line of Bucky’s jaw and his fingers seek traction against the strain of Bucky’s cock. Bucky’s gaze wanders away to fix itself to the ceiling overhead, to linger without attention at the shape of the room around them while all his consciousness fits itself beneath the heat of Steve’s body over him and within the grip of Steve’s fingers around him, and when Steve’s lips find the shape of a kiss at Bucky’s jaw Bucky shuts his eyes and lets himself fall out of his own keeping and entirely into Steve’s, offering up the support of his consciousness to those hands that have the strength, now, to manage what that gaze was always ready to promise him. Bucky’s spine arches, Bucky’s head goes back, and when he comes the groan of Steve’s name in his throat tastes just as pleasure-hot as his memory says it ever has.

However different Steve looks, all the important things between them remain the same as always.


	3. Recollect

He can’t remember who he is.

His name is long-since lost, one of the casualties of the haze in his memory and the fractures that spiderweb through everything he once thought solid, everything he once took for granted. It’s been a long time since he knew what it was to have a foundation under his feet, longer still since he knew what direction to face himself even on those rare occasions he has solid ground beneath him. His world is scattered, shattered and adrift in his half-remembered past, in his almost-foreseen future, and he long ago lost the strength to fight for clarity, to keep his head above water. Reality closed over him like the surface of a night-black sea, the weight of truth swept into his lungs to crush life away from his grasp, and what existence he has managed since then is so far from truth that he hardly even thinks to claim it as one of those belongings that used to be his with such ease, that have been torn away and taken back and slipped free of his fingers to leave him with nothing but the chill of icy air in their place.

There is someone with him. That would hardly be worth noting, in a world that has become structured around the form of targets that leave no attention for anything that remains; but this someone is present, real in a way he doesn’t understand and can’t place a name to but feels as surely as he can feel his blood circulating in his veins, as surely as he can feel his heart thudding through the dull instinct of existence. There’s a voice, too, low and murmuring words he has to struggle to pick out and struggle harder to make sense of, but he can attempt neither with the heat that is pressing against his skin, the gentle friction working its way across a body that hardly even feels like his own anymore, for all that it connects to the mismapped patterns of pain and pleasure that have short-circuited his memories into no more than reflexive obedience. He shudders with the friction against him, arms and legs and fingers trembling as convulsively as if with the force of the electricity he recalls with greater clarity than anything akin to this present sensation; but there’s no pain that follows this heat, no hurt that crackles along his spine, and when his throat works it’s a gasp that spills for his hearing instead of the tension of pain repetition has taught him to expect.

There’s vibration against his skin -- against his shoulder, he realizes, as he blinks over inattentive vision and relocates himself by the feel of heat against him, tingling sensation through his body to map the shape of him as if by the reflection of a sound bouncing off the walls of a pitch-black room. He’s lying flat, his bare shoulders and legs against something that isn’t cold, if it’s not precisely warm; when his muscles shift on involuntary force he finds it’s softer, too, it gives way to the motion of his body instead of demanding he conform to its restriction. He blinks again, watches the blur of incoherence around him shiver and shift into something almost familiar, something almost real, before the surface beneath him shifts, pulling to one side in time with the shadow of motion leaning over him.

“You always used to like that.” That voice is tantalizing, near and distant at once, humming with a weight that proves it to be real but echoing back into chambers of memory that he hasn’t touched in long years, that have been locked to him no matter how he may reach for them. It’s a fragment from who he used to be, from the person so broken apart from his current existence that he can’t even tie them with the tether of a name; but that voice is here, with him, so close to his skin that the heat of it spills goosebumps all across his chest. “Do you remember?”

He shakes his head and blinks again, struggling towards clarity. His vision steadies and fixes itself on the straight lines overhead; attention brings the abstract shapes into the framework of a ceiling, the outline of a room around them.

“That’s okay.” There’s no impatience on the voice, no tension of anger or upset. He’s never heard anything so calm and so steady; except he has, he _knows_ he has. Or maybe he’s dreamed it, maybe this creeping sense of unplaceable familiarity is nothing but the shadow of the déjà vu that steps in to fill all the gaps in his memory with the sense of something not-quite-in-reach, an experience he recalls without claiming anything more than the ache of nostalgia keen as a blade in the middle of his chest. “You don’t have to remember. It’s alright.” There’s another press of heat, against his chest, this time; he shudders and moves, lifting a hand before he can think. His fingers press against soft hair, rumpling through the locks without his intention, and his head turns to answer, veering the world around him as his gaze moves to follow his hand. The person leaning over him is still ducking over his chest, still pressing the warmth of a kiss against his skin; as his fingers dig into gold-streaked hair the other’s head comes up in answer. Blue eyes meet his own, clear and unflinching in their consideration; the lighting in the room is too dim to pick out details, but he feels certain that there is green there too, that if he stares long enough he’ll be able to uncover hidden shades of depth from that certain gaze.

His mouth twists on itself, dragging towards a frown as he struggles for thought, as he fights for words within the rubble of his memories and the fog of his intention. “Who…” He pauses, fighting to determine a subject for the question. “Who am I?”

Those eyes soften, easing into tenderness that seems to lead instead of follow the curve of a smile that shifts over those lips. “You’re Bucky.” A hand comes up to touch his face; steady fingers press over his cheek with a gentleness he can’t remember ever feeling before, offering heat that quivers into his blood and steals his breath as that touch draws over his jaw. There’s danger in leaving his neck exposed, he remembers that, he should protect himself from an attack that might hit the back of his skull or the soft skin taut over his pulse; but when that hand slides down he tilts into instead of away from it, surrendering himself to the intimacy of the contact even as his identity slides and skids away from the shape of that name he can’t recall ever hearing before.

“I don’t…” He hears his voice creaking in his throat, straining as if it’s struggling under an impossible weight. He presses his lips together and tightens them into a frown before he shakes his head, trying this time to shed the heat aching behind his eyes instead of rejecting an offered question. “Who?”

“James Buchanan Barnes.” It takes him a minute to even realize that this is an answer as well, but that smile is still lingering, those eyes are still watching him. “I’ve always just thought of you as Bucky, though.” The other turns to the side; lips brush his other collarbone, sliding against the dip of it to draw heat in their wake. “My Bucky.”

“I…” His voice is trembling, his throat is tight. There’s heat on his cheeks, he realizes. His vision is hazy with liquid. “I know you.” His fingers tighten reflexively to pull against the soft of the other’s hair. “Why do I know you?”

“You know me.” Warmth against his skin, pressing close against the texture of scars that meld to the chill of metal that never heats, no matter how bright the sunlight or how humid-hot the air, but he imagines he can feel sensation prickling down the electrical circuits of the metal-bright arm attached to his shoulder, as if the weight that has never been anything but a weapon might be taking on human shape, as if his shattered mind might be reaching out to lay claim to that side of his body as much as he is in control of any part of the form he can feel trembling with every press of the other’s action. “You’ve always known me. For years.” There’s a cough of sound, a spill of warmth across his skin; it takes him a moment to recognize the strained exhale as a laugh. “Decades, even, I guess. Though I don’t know if those count.”

“Why?” He’s speaking the words to the ceiling overhead, hearing them in his ears as if he’s listening to a stranger speak, as if he might be able to learn the shape of his own too-tight chest and aching eyes by the sound of his voice shaping the question. “Why do I...why are you doing this?”

Another spill of warmth, lower this time, winding ticklish as a touch around his ribcage. “I’ve told you before.”

He blinks hard. His lashes go heavy with wet before the tears spill over to trickle across his face. “I don’t remember.”

“I know.” Friction at his stomach, just alongside the dip of his navel; he shudders and clutches at tangled hair, seeking traction to steady himself. “You don’t have to. I’ll show you as many times as I need to.” A hand shifts to brace under his knee and urge his leg wider; he lets himself give in to it as his fingers fist against that soft hair and pull to steady himself against a world that keeps veering and dipping around him. Lips touch his hip, where skin pulls taut over bone to thrum sensation all through his body with the least contact, and he gasps with the force of it.

“Because you’re Bucky.” That voice is echoing in his head, warm and steady as a lullaby and he knows it, he knows it, he knows-- “My Bucky.” Green flecks in blue eyes, a smile warm enough to melt all the sternness out of handsome features, hands gentle against him with the strength that they always deserved to have, steady with the certainty that has always been there, that has always…

“Oh,” Bucky says. “ _Stevie_.”

He can feel the catch of the breath Steve takes at his hip, the sharp inhale that clings to the back of the other’s throat. He doesn’t need to see the shape of the smile at Steve’s lips, the soft tremor of the expression to match the warmth in those clear eyes; he turns his head down anyway, to meet Steve’s attention with the focus of his own, as long as he can have it.

“Hey,” Steve says, his voice calm but his eyes bright with damp, his mouth trembling on emotion he’s barely fighting back. “I missed you, Bucky.”

Bucky doesn’t try to smooth free the catch of a sob on his inhale. “I missed you too,” he rasps in a voice that tears itself to gravel against the inside of his chest. Steve smiles at him, the warmth as genuine as the wet threatening at his overlong lashes, and then he dips his head to kiss against Bucky’s thigh, and to steady his hand at Bucky’s hip, and Bucky lets his head fall back to the pillow beneath him and shuts his eyes to the distraction that vision makes to the glow of radiance spreading through him from the weight of Steve’s mouth against him.

He doesn’t need to be afraid of losing himself when he has Steve to bring him back.


End file.
